Exeunt Changeling
by ArmedWithAPen
Summary: Nobody had ever accused Zam Wesell of being careful, prudent, or thoughtful. But she was nothing if not resourceful. How else would she have survived that night on Coruscant? Angsty Jango/Zam, if you squint. AU.
1. The Changeling Dies

_A/N: So, unsatisfied with Zam's death on Coruscant (and being the rabid Jango/Zam shipper that I am) I rewrote the scene! Dedicated to Pasha Pasha, my first friend on . Enjoy! _

DISCLAIMER: If I owned this, the following would definitely NOT be called an 'alternate universe.' _  
_

* * *

She needed an escape, and she needed one now. The two Jedi had entered the club, their sharp piercing eyes sweeping the mingling bar-goers. Any moment now she was at risk.

Thinking quickly, she ducked into the female restroom.

Cheap dim lights washed her purple suit into a sickly shade of puce as she entered. The small room smelled like mold and stale antibacterial.

Some sharp gasps and heated thumps in the last stall made an involuntary blush rise to her cheeks, despite the situation. She had obviously intruded upon a human mating ritual.

Ignoring the sounds, she stumbled to the sink, and clasped the dirty counter in both trembling hands. She felt sick.

She knew Fett was here, watching her. Once, during the speeder chase through the city, she had caught a glimpse of him, keeping out of sight behind the parapet of a skyscraper. He was making sure there would be no mistakes.

_No mistakes…_

Zam's purple gloves tightened on the porcelain as she gritted her teeth. Fett had often been her business partner, her friend, and, she sometimes liked to think, maybe a little bit more.

But she knew he would not hesitate to kill her in a heartbeat. Especially if he suspected her coming anywhere close to divulging information related to him or his son.

A cold, sticky emotion suddenly swept through her body, beginning from the base of her neck all the way down to her fingertips.

Fear.

She had felt fear very few times before, but she knew what it felt like well enough.

She also knew it was pointless.

Breathing deeply, Zam removed her purple crash helmet, and placed it behind the sink.

Panicking would get you nowhere, except deeper into trouble. She needed to think. She needed a plan.

She stripped her clammy hands of their gloves, and splashed some healing water on her face. The noises in the last stall made concentration near impossible.

She had to eliminate the Jedi.

That was the only way she could escape with her life.

But she knew it was impossible. She could hardly defeat a bounty, let alone a Jedi; she specialized in sneaking around, performing tasks that required stealth and a disarmingly sweet face.

She could fight them. She was skilled in hand to hand.

Oh, please, who was she kidding?

Giving a sharp growl in frustration, Zam shattered the mirror with a bare fist.

She gasped and withdrew the hand swiftly, cursing under her breath in Huttese. Injuring yourself was probably worse than panicking.

Plucking the larger shards of glass from her skin, Zam examined her bleeding hand thoughtfully.

She could change…

But, then again, she knew of the Jedi's mind tricks. No matter what form she took, she might as well wave a sign over her head; ASSASSIN HERE! They could pick her out of a crowd by simply reading her mind.

She washed most of the blood off her fingers, and pensively watched the red swirl down the drain.

That was it!

She had to disappear.

She couldn't go back to Fett. She couldn't go back to anything of her old life. She had to start fresh.

But how…

As if in answer to her unvoiced question, the door to the last stall opened.

Absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn't noticed the humans had finished their mating.

A tall, rough, dark-headed male, pulling on his trousers with one hand and correcting his hair with the other, emerged from the stall. Zam cast his reflection a critical eye in the shattered mirror. He wasn't particularly handsome. His dirty, unshaven face and filthy clothes marked him as only one example of the scum who frequented the club. Scum looking for food, drinks, and cheap sex they could buy with the money they just earned off their recent transport.

He hardly spared her a glance. She might have been just a paper towel dispenser. He stumbled from the restroom in a drunken stupor, probably off to blow the last of his money on another drink or two.

Zam remained stationary by the sink, waiting. It did, after all, take two to tango…

Finally, the second participant in the mating ritual emerged.

A smashed blue Twi'lek staggered from the stall next, barely keeping her skirt held closed with a tiny hand. She absolutely reeked of drink. Zam vaguely wondered how much the ugly human had forced down her throat before she had agreed to sleep with him.

By the outfit the girl was wearing, Zam guessed she was a prostitute. But then again, she might just be a naïve girl wearing what she thought was appropriate attire for a rough club.

The Twi'lek lurched to the sink next to her, drunken hands doing their best to arrange her lengthy lekku acceptably.

She, unlike the man, wasn't too drunk to at least notice someone else occupied the restroom. She tipped her head sloppily. "'Morn."

"Had a good night?" Zam's mouth twitched.

The Twi'lek shrugged, then grinned, and patted a stuffed coin purse; the fruits of her labor for the night. "Good enough."

Zam frowned. Just a moment ago, the girl looked intoxicated enough to knock over with a feather. Already, she seemed to be sobering up.

The Twi'lek put a hand on the sink absently, and retracted it with a gasp. A small red slit stood out against the blue skin where she had cut her palm on a shard of glass.

Zam almost offered aid, but for some reason, didn't.

The girl examined her injury for a moment, as though not quite comprehending what had happened. And then, deftly, she held the hand underneath the obnoxious neon light, and changed it.

Not the light. Her hand.

With a quick shift of skin, her hand became, not that of a Twi'lek, but of a human.

Zam blinked twice, but that was the extent of her show of surprise.

She glanced at the Twi'lek casually, who seemed to be examining her with a superior smug grin on her face.

"Clawdite?"

The prostitute giggled, and shifted her skirt proudly. "Shape-shifting sure is handy in this business…when you can become anything your buyer wants…"

Zam had never thought about it that way before.

But the girl was a Clawdite…that could prove useful…

The idea smacked into her like a brick, and she barely kept the grin from her face. Very useful indeed.

"You sober now?"

"Yes." The Twi'lek dropped all her form now, and became her natural shape of a Clawdite. Zam couldn't help but flinch. Her kind was…very striking indeed. "We sober fast."

"Indeed." Zam appeared thoughtful for a moment, pursing her angel mouth. "Tell you what…would you like another job?"

"What job?"

Zam looked pointedly at the girl's purse.

Catching her meaning, the prostitute's enormous green eyes lit up greedily. "A client?"

"Two, to be precise."

"Where?"

"Just outside, towards the front entrance. Now, wait a minute…"

Zam's bare hand reached out and grasped the Clawdite's arm as she went to exit the restroom.

"They're rather…expecting me," the bounty hunter fudged, looking down and allowing a blush to stain her cheeks. "I…owe them for tipping me off about a bounty the other night."

Without another word, the Clawdite's skin rippled, and Zam was swiftly staring at an exact replica of herself, dressed in a scanty skirt and top.

"I always thought I was shorter…"

"Close enough." The Clawdite brushed off her comment and made for the door again.

"Wait!" Zam grabbed her arm again and pulled her back towards the last stall, shrugging off her purple leather jacket as she did so. "You need to be dressed like me. And trust me, I would never be caught wearing those rags."

The Clawdite seemed to be a little too dense to pick up on the fact that she had just been insulted. Giggling insanely, a noise that reminded Zam of an irritating fifth grader, the Zam replica began to remove her skirt and top.

Zam assumed the prostitute's clothes, putting them on herself, and trying her best to ignore the various stains and smells that hung on them.

Finally, the Zam replica emerged, grinning, wearing the purple suit and helmet. "How do I look?"

"Like me," Zam answered, impressed. If she didn't know better, she'd say she wasn't herself at all. She hoped it was enough to fool the Jedi.

The Clawdite grinned excitedly, and pulled the veil over her mouth. She made for the door with haste.

"One last thing," Zam took her hand and pressed her blaster into the palm. "Walk up behind the red-headed one, and point this at him. It…rather…turns him on."

The girl squealed, a noise that made Zam puke a little in her mouth, clapped her hands excitedly, and shot out of the bathroom, tucking the blaster away under the vest.

Zam held her breath, and changed herself into the form of the same blue Twi'lek.

It really was handy to be a shape-shifter sometimes.

Cautiously, she opened the door to the restroom and peaked out.

The unsuspecting prostitute was making her way through the crowd, towards the pair of Jedi.

Zam bit back a grin. She felt no remorse for sending the girl to her doom. Besides, she had fairly begged her to anyway.

She slipped behind a pair of thrashing Senators, out on a weekend binge, to watch the occurrence.

She had to hand it to her, the Clawdite prostitute was talented. Zam found it rather spooky how similar their bodies looked.

She stayed long enough to watch the wretched Clawdite draw her blaster at the red-headed Jedi's unsuspecting back.

And when he whirled, saber out, and chopped her hand off, Zam took her leave.

Without stopping, she ran for the back door of the club, knocking over several dancing couples and a few unsuspecting tables.

She sprinted out the back door, spilled out into the alley, picked herself up, and kept running. The Twi'lek's lekku dangled on her back like an irritating added weight, but there was so much adrenalin pumping through her bloodstream, she hardly noticed.

She had to make it to the space port. Her speeder was trashed, but she had enough credits in the purse she had snuck from the Clawdite to buy a new one ten times over.

Or a ticket for the nearest rock in the middle of nowhere.

That was her plan.

She had to disappear. Narrowly dodging a pair of Jedi after a failed attempt to assassinate a senator was rather sketchy. Not to mention Jango would not be happy…

The thought of the bounty hunter made her heart skip a few beats, but she quickly stopped the thought.

She couldn't think of him that way now. She couldn't think of him at all.

Her life here was over.

She rounded a corner. The spaceport was just at the next alley.

But then a sight made her stop dead in her tracks.

From where she stood at the very corner of the skyscraper's walkway, she could see a form, crouched low above the city.

It sparkled.

Zam could have recognized Jango Fett's unmistakable T-shaped visor anywhere, even in the middle of a pitch black cave in the dead of night.

Allowing herself to revert back to her human form, Zam scuttled across the rooftop and hopped to a ledge just above the bounty hunter. From behind, his jet pack gave him the increased appearance of a boxy droid.

She wondered what he was doing here, crouched on the ledge of a building above the Outlander Club entrance. Her perfect view of the back of his white helmet offered little observation of his actions, but from the movements in his right arm, Zam guessed he was fiddling with something.

Creeping as close as she dared, Zam squinted hard at the long tube Jango grasped in one fist.

A Mandalorian dart gun.

Simple, but deadly.

Once, when she was little, Zam remembered falling off the roof of her home, where she and a friend had been playing. The fall was short, only about six feet to the ground, but she still remembered the awful feeling of having the wind sucked from her lungs like a vacuum of space.

That was the way she felt now.

He was planning to kill her.

Well, not _her _her, but the _other _her. The prostitute her!

Blazing anger erupted through Zam's chest, and a hand flashed to her side for her blaster. How dare he think he could get away with killing her? _Her_, his friend and partner for close to ten years now!

She might have shot him in that instant of rage, had her hand not grasped that strange alienness of a missing pistol at her side.

Like forgetting a step at the foot of the stairs, Zam felt her stomach drop to her knees. Where was her blaster?

As if in answer, a cacophony of scuffling noises and sharp words directed her attention to the entrance of the Outlander's Club. The two Jedi and her look-alike were making their appearance.

On the ledge below, Jango lay flat on his stomach, arms bent and holding the dart gun to his eye. Lining up the shot.

Did she imagine the trembling in his arms?

Her gaze flashed back to the Jedi, who had the prostitute flat on the ground and seemed to be proceeding to interrogate her. The girl had not dropped her form, a fact that was surprising but not unpleasant. Zam had heard of cases of shock where a Clawdite's muscles all tensed at once, and a shift was impossible. A useful development.

She couldn't quite hear what was said from her position on the rooftop, but she had a feeling Jango could. His shoulders were visibly tense, and the barrel of the dart gun trembled now more than ever.

The wind finally subsided, and she made out the trembling words the prostitute began to murmur, "Alright, I'll tell you. I was hired by a bounty hunter named…"

Zam's heart dropped. She was done for.

But in the same instant, Jango turned his head to the side, and pulled the trigger.

As with all of his shots, this one found its mark. Flying straight and true, the feathered dart burrowed itself in the prostitute's long neck.

It was almost comical how similar the look of shock appeared on both Jedi, Zam, and the prostitute's faces.

Disbelieving, the girl reached up a finger and touched the protruding weapon. On cue, her eyes skipped over Jango, who she did not see on the hidden ledge, and lighted on Zam, who stood tall on the roof.

Her eyes narrowed to slits as she hissed her dying words in Huttese. _"Scum bounty hunter."_

And then the prostitute was no more. The skin of the beautiful young woman melted away to reveal the shriveled green Clawdite beneath, enormous lime eyes flung open and glazed.

So it was over.

On the ledge below, Jango slowly rose to his feet, still clutching the dart gun, as he stared at the Jedi taking the Clawdite's pulse.

If Zam hadn't watched it happen, she would not have believed it. He actually did it. Jango would have killed her.

What a fool she had been! To think that she had actually believed…

Had actually wanted…

She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted the bit of salt on her tongue. Stunned, she touched a tear with her fingertips. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried.

She knew he had his priorities. He had to protect himself. He had to protect his son.

It still stung like a whip when she realized she had never been one of his priorities.

Jango said something into the wind in a quiet murmur. She couldn't make out what it was, but she thought she heard her name. She dropped down flat against the roof and buried her face in her arms, pleading to whatever god existed that he had not seen her.

He had not. Eyes shut, form returned to that of the now dead Twi`lek prostitute, Zam listened to the sound of his jet pack igniting. She was still until the noise disappeared into the hubbub of the late night Coruscant commute.

She was still even after.

The air in her lungs had disappeared again.

"Hey, you!"

She whirled, eyes wide. The lekku on her head smacked against the roof as the security guard came forward, flashlight held out threateningly.

"This roof is off limits," the rotund human growled, marching forward. "What are you doing up here?"

He was ugly, short, and fat, with an unkempt five o'clock shadow, and extremely greasy hair.

Perfect.

Shoving the feel of abandonment to the farthest corner of her mind, Zam began to act. She pouted her full Twi'lek lips and surreptitiously drew her already scandalous skirt a little above mid-thigh.

"I think I'm lost," she squeaked in her best innocent voice. The naturally sultry cadences of her Twi'lek vocal chords only added to the spell.

The security guard flushed, and blinked twice, obviously trying valiantly to deny his eyes staring at her thigh. He began to stammer a reply, but Zam interrupted.

"It was really scary up here all by myself," she murmured, rising from her position on the ground and coming towards him. "But now that you're here, sir, I feel much safer."

The guard flushed deeper, his mottled skin taking on the complexion of a hot tuantuan. Zam smirked inwardly. Men were so weak.

"J-Just doin' my job, m-miss," he stuttered. The hand holding the flashlight trembled.

Zam smiled sweetly. "I have a job too, sir. Know what it is?"

Sweat streamed down the guard's face, only adding to the already putrid scent of an unwashed body. "I c-could guess…"

"My clients tell me I'm very good at my job." Inside, she was caught between laughing at the guard's obvious want, and puking from her actions. This was the worst part of the job. "Would you like to find out? A…free ride, as we say?"

The guard had already dropped the flashlight and was in the process of unzipping his pants. Not much for words, this one.

This would usually be the point where Jango, hidden in the shadows, would shoot with deadly accuracy, and then the pair would continue on their way.

The thought of Jango made the left side of Zam's chest squeeze painfully, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Jango was gone, and she was dead. There would be no more thoughts of Jango Fett.

"You are a bright one," Zam giggled like that obnoxious fifth grader again and teasingly brushed the front of his pants with a finger. "You really want this, hmm?"

If the guard nodded much harder, his head would fall off his shoulders.

"Then I'll give it to you." Her hand hovered still over his pants. She counted to five, while she planned her moves in her head.

She'd give it to him, alright.

With a strike as fast as a snake, Zam's hand snapped out and fairly ripped the guard's pride in two.

With a sharp yelp of pain and assorted Huttese curses, the man doubled over, retching.

Zam deftly grasped his general issue pistol from the holster and casually kicked him hard, breaking his knee.

Howling swears and heaving breaths, the guard rolled to the side, roaring at Zam. "_You little…"_

With a short pop of the blaster, the guard fell back, eyes wide in a mix of shock and death.

"Nothing personal," Zam smirked, quickly stripping the dead guard of his shirt and utility belt. As she negotiated a stubborn cuff from one fat wrist, she noticed the tarnished wedding ring.

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "I probably did her a favor." What kind of a creep would be willing to sleep with another woman when he had a perfectly good wife at home? Someone who loved him and trusted him?

The guard's shirt fit her more like a dress, just above the knee. Zam secured it around her waist with the belt and holstered the standard issue blaster. Not exactly a fashion statement, and it stank, but it would have to do.

Securing the Twi'lek's veil around her blue face, Zam made her way down the steps into a small raucous pub. Not as big as the Outlander, but definitely with rougher characters. She was sure she recognized a Dug in the corner booth from a wanted poster on Dantooine.

Unnoticed from the dank smell on her outfit, and the slight bit of weight she put on for safety, Zam slipped right out the front door, easily snitching a drunk Neimoidian's purse.

Marching down Corscant's street, Zam couldn't help but glance around her now and then. She knew she was being paranoid—the two Jedi and Jango were long gone by now. But she hadn't made it in this business for close to fifteen years by being careless.

She spotted the speeder store immediately, and quickened her pace to the door. She stopped when she realized it was closed.

Now what?

Struck with an idea, she secured the coins in the stolen purse and rocketed down the street towards the space port. With enough money to buy a speeder, she could certainly hitch a ride on a craft.

Almost running over a Geonosian in her haste, Zam spilled out onto the space port, green eyes scanning each ship.

She found her answer in a small craft being loaded by a pair of scruffy looking Ithorians. She sprinted forward and spilled inside just as the bay doors were shutting.

The Ithorians gurgled in surprise at the sudden appearance of a Twi'lek girl in their cargo bay.

Zam ignored them and held out a handful of credits. "Where you headed?"

The stunned pilot glanced first at her, then at his co-pilot, who shrugged and quickly scooped up the proffered credits as he made a low reply.

Zam nodded. "Geonosis? Funny, me too, what a coincidence."

No more questions asked, the Ithorians fired up the engines of the small craft and rocketed into space.

Zam propped herself up against a crate of what smelled like spice as they zoomed away. Geonosis. No one would look for her on Geonosis. That desert rock at the farthest reaches of the galaxy was definitely the place to go if you didn't want to be found.

And she did not want to be found. Not by the Jedi, not by the Republic, not by anyone.

Not by Jango.

"How long until we get there?"

The pilot gurgled in his own language, _"A good twenty four hours at lightspeed and without stellar flares. Now, shut up, I want to hear no more of you for the remainder of the journey."_

Zam ignored the latter part of his sentence. Twenty four hours.

She looked out the window at the quickly shrinking Coruscant, where she had left it all behind. Her uniform, her blaster, her life.

Jango.

It existed no more.

She expected a feeling of cleansing, catharsis, a sense of freedom. She was dead. She could be anyone she wanted to be. She could start over.

All she felt was numb.

"It will get better in time," she murmured quietly to herself. "Things always have a habit of fixing themselves in the morning."

There was that taste of salt again. That absence of matter in the left side of her chest. That missing wind.

The Ithorians in the cockpit glanced behind them at the sudden harsh sob that racked the Twi'lek girl's body. She lay curled on a crate of spice, balled up and crying as though she had been beaten. Her pretty face was buried in her arms.

The co-pilot's gaze softened as he looked on the girl in their cargo bay. "_Wonder what happened to her."_

"_Abusive boyfriend probably," _the pilot answered, staring fixedly into space as he readied the hyperdrive. _"Always the same with these girls."_

The co-pilot looked into his lap, before glancing back at the sobbing Twi'lek. _"She's crying as though her heart's been broken."_

"_This is exactly why I don't have a mate," _the pilot growled, pulling the lever. _"Nothing but pain."_

The craft shot away into the stillness of space as Zam softly cried herself to sleep, and the Ithorians pondered the unfairness of love.

FIN.

* * *

_A/N: TA-DAA! The fruit of many hours of brain-wracking plotting! :D I might continue this, Zam's survival changes the entire fate of the Fett family, but that depends on your reviews! _


	2. The Mercenary Grieves

_A/N: Finally, a chapter two! Told from Jango's perspective because we never really know what he thought after he...sniff...killed Zam. :( Anyway, enjoy.  
_

* * *

He didn't remember much of the rest of the night.

It seemed as though, after he pulled that trigger, Coruscant's lights, horns, blaring vitality faded. The soft whistle of the dart drowned out everything else as it flew towards her like a malicious insect, silver stinger extended and waiting.

He had held his breath to steady the shot.

Now, sitting in the small cockpit of _Slave I_, leagues away from the glittering city planet, he still hadn't inhaled. Comatose, he stared out into the swirling blue vortex of hyperspace, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, numb with shock.

_She's gone. _

The same two, terrible words had repeated themselves over and over again in his mind like a hideous mantra.

A hideous mantra as he flew through space…

A hideous mantra as he landed on Kamino…

A hideous mantra as he stepped from the cockpit of _Slave I_ and out into the pouring rain. The little drops of water made a lonely pattering sound against his armor, like when someone tapped a cracked crystal glass with a piece of tin. He would have noticed if he hadn't been so numb. He couldn't hear anything except the whistle of the dart echoing like a phantom in his ears. Everything else was foggy.

The sharp hiss of Kamino's sliding doors admitted him, stumbling, into the brightly lit interior of Tipoca City. The lights were blinding.

As always, Taun We met him at the door with a passive smile and a warm housecoat.

"Welcome home, Mister Fett," she greeted in her smooth voice. "Boba has behaved himself quite nicely tonight. I do believe he was endeavoring to stall his bedtime. I hope your trip was profitable. Where is Miss Wesell?"

Her voice faded in and out of focus in Jango's ears. It was like he was trying to make out her words underwater, or behind a pane of glass.

Taun We glanced behind him with a frown, as though Zam might be hiding. When her search proved unsuccessful, and she found Jango still hadn't answered her question, she froze.

He could read the realization dawning in her black eyes.

"Jango," she addressed him, her voice losing its smoothness and growing more firm, "Jango, take off that helmet. Where is Miss Wesell? Where is Zam?"

_Zam…_

Funny how that one syllable could bring him crashing finally down from terminal velocity to terra firma. Everything that had been suspended in time, moving in slow motion through the air, suddenly fell into real time with enough force to bring a man to his knees.

Pure, hardened training and a trembling Mandalorian spirit were the only things that kept him standing.

"She's not coming anymore, Taun We." The coldness in his own voice stunned him. It wasn't him at all. This voice was his safety, his shell. The real Jango Fett was hiding inside him, slumped, curled, and shaking in the deepest corner of his heart. "Not now, and not ever again."

The Kaminoan looked like he had physically slapped her in the face. She staggered a few steps backwards, her enormous black eyes growing wider than he had thought possible, and she dropped the housecoat to the floor.

"Jango…" she whispered tremulously, placing a long, thin hand at the base of her neck, "Jango, what have you done?"

He didn't say anything. But he kept his helmet on so she couldn't read his expression.

Swallowing, the Mandalorian strode with deceiving evenness down the white hallway, leaving the compassionate and astounded Taun We behind. What felt like a white hot clawing was beginning to scratch at the inside of his ribs, and he had the sudden urge to run to his quarters and hide.

Hide somewhere.

Hide anywhere.

Anywhere away from everyone else. Away from the image he had to keep, away from the cold man he had to be.

_Just somewhere. _

He was almost there.

Just one more hallway between him and freedom. Just one more hallway between this Jango — the Jango that was okay with what he had done, the Jango that took everything in stride — and the Jango he could feel shaking and torn inside.

_The Jango who had murdered Zam. _

_Murdered Zam. _

_Murderer._

He had finally reached sanctuary; the door to his rooms was before him. He slammed his fist into the control panel, and stumbled into his quarters. Dots swam across his vision, and a dizzy, sick, cold sweat broke out across his forehead behind his visor.

"Dad?"

He froze. _Boba. _

The one thing in his life he felt he had done right. The center of his universe.

His son couldn't see him like this.

Slowly, he turned to face the young spitting image of himself.

Boba stood there, in the doorway to his bedroom, looking up at his father with wide brown eyes. He recognized the expression. It was his own. The look of curiosity, hesitance, and at the same time, admiration.

The type of look Jango had used when gazing at his own mentor, Jaster Mereel. He swallowed.

Boba's confusion suddenly changed to joy. "Dad!" The boy charged at his father and crushed himself to an armored waist, purposefully ignoring the raindrops drenching the front of his tunic. "Dad, you're back! Finally!"

The Mandalorian warrior stiffened where he would usually return the embrace. Unlike in other cultures, Mandalor _buirs _almost never restrained their affection for their sons. Family was everything.

But here, at this moment, he felt so unbearably guilty…

Family was everything to a Mandalorian, and yet…

_He, this boy's father, had killed the closest thing Boba had to a mother._

If the boy recognized his father's strange actions, he said nothing. He merely buried himself farther into the blue Mandalorian armor and smiled. "Glad you're back, Dad. Did you finish the job? Of course you did. You always finish the job. Well, with Zam's help you mostly finish the job…speaking of which, where is she, anyway?"

Boba pulled away with a happy grin, looking around just like Taun We had done. "She met up with you, right? Didn't she come to say 'Hello?'"

Jango remained silent on the outside, but inside the helmet, it was all he could do to keep from screaming. That white hot clawing creature had clambered up from his chest past his collarbone, and was now tightening his neck. He swallowed again.

He could lie. He should lie. He had to lie. He couldn't tell Boba the truth. He couldn't…

Boba's smile began to fade. He looked up into Jango's black visor and frowned. "Dad…? Dad, what's going…"

"Boba…" Jango's voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper, and the filter of the helmet transformed it further into the voice of a malfunctioning droid. "Boba…listen to me…

"What Zam and I do for a living, son…it's not easy, alright? Do you understand me? Sometimes…sometimes in this profession, people like you and me and…and Zam, you see, we have to make a choice. We have to make lots of choices, actually, and we all knew that when we started this. Zam knew it, and I knew it, and by now, you should know it, too."

"Dad." Boba's frown was firm now, firm as Taun We's voice had grown from confused to firm. "Dad, where is Zam?"

Jango couldn't hide it from Boba. He couldn't hide anything from Boba. Somehow, he could read his mind like a book. Something about sharing the same blood, the same flesh, the same mind…

"Boba, Zam's not coming back," he said. "She's…"

The frown was instantly replaced by a look of absolute horror. "NO!"

"Boba, please, I…"

"NO!" The boy stumbled backwards towards the door, pressing himself flat against the panel as if silently hoping to meld right through it. Jango came forward helplessly, arms outstretched. "NO! No, it…it's not possible! She was here…she was here! She was fine yesterday, I saw her! I was with her! How can she be…"

It seemed as though the boy had lost the ability to speak. He floundered like a fish out of water for words to say, but all that came from his small pink lips were hoarse gasps of syllables.

And Jango could say nothing - absolutely nothing - to comfort his son. All he could do was stand there, dumb, like a statue. Afraid that if he moved, somehow his son would see. Somehow, he would know.

Zam wasn't just dead.

Zam had been murdered.

Murdered by his own father.

But Boba seemed to be getting a hold of himself. He didn't want to appear weak in front of his father. He didn't want to cry in front of the man who never cried about anything in his entire life.

"I see," the boy answered through thin lips in a strained voice that barely disguised the trembling. "Well, that's...not good."

Inside his helmet, Jango suddenly felt the air go cold and humid, like underneath a Kamino awning during a rainstorm. Never had he heard his son, usually so emotional, so warm and compassionate, sound like that. Like he cared nothing for the death of a woman he had been so close to. Like he wasn't fazed in the slightest.

Like him.

"Boba...I..."

"No, Dad, I get it." The small boy rubbed his eyes as if he was tired, or had a headache. "She's not...she's not coming back. Okay. Sure."

As Boba uttered the words, spat them out as though they were painful to say, Jango felt the increasing urge to grab his child, hold him close to his chest, and swear never to let go ever again. To tell him that it was alright to cry. Just this once. That this was what tears were saved for.

For some reason, he didn't.

"Listen, Dad, I'm really tired. I'm going to...going to go to bed, alright?" Boba scratched at his eyes again and turned away toward the hallway.

Jango nodded. He still couldn't find any words to say. Any words his guilty throat could manage without cracking. "I love you, son."

His voice wavered. If only he could take off this blasted, awful helmet!

"Love you too, Dad." And then the door hissed shut quietly.

Like a trigger, Jango's emotions exploded. Anger, sadness, rage, confusion, and pure, horrible, awful guilt ripped from his body in one enormous starburst.

With an outraged cry that might have substituted for a wail of pain, he seized the nearest thing on his nightstand, the hub for his comlink, and threw it across the room with all the force he could manage. It smashed into the long mirror behind the door with a satisfying shatter of glass.

His anger knew no words. He didn't shout or speak or vocalize any form of the rage. He had never been a speaker. He had never put much value in words.

Maybe if he had, it would have turned out differently.

Just that thought reawakened the beast within him, and he ripped the armor from his chest, flinging it into his closet. Hangers, blasters, and ammunition crashed to the floor in mayhem, followed by the bedside lamp Jango chucked into their midst.

His heart was pounding with a sense of sheer pain that made him want to shoot his leg with his Westars. Just to take his mind off it.

How dare she make him feel this way! Even in death, she was still the biggest pain in his...

Nothing in the room was safe. Madness took the Mandalorian in a violent whirlwind of unsophisticated grace. He found relief in breaking things, anything he could reach, because in the end, everything reminded him of her.

That amulet she had pawned off a Corellian trader and given to him with a wry grin and the promise of safety from any blaster fire.

That holobook she had lent him with the warning that the Coruscant library expected it back in two weeks, and she'd make him pay if he lost it.

The hoverboard she had persuaded him to buy for Boba as a birthday gift. All the kids had one, she reasoned. It was high time he rewarded his son for being such a wonderful kid...

Finally, his tornado of anger had given way to that hollow feeling in his chest. Everything in the room had been broken, torn, or displaced. His dresser lay on its side across the room from where it had been previously. Houseclothes were strewn across floor in crumpled heaps. The sheets on his bed had been flung onto the curtains, and the pillow was now feathers floating like snow from the ceiling.

Exhausted, his anger dwindled into that dull throbbing again. That numbness.

He collapsed into his chair, the only thing in the room left standing, and let his head fall into his hands.

He was weary. There was no other word to describe it. He was sick and tired of trying so very hard not to get attached to people, and failing. Becoming attached in the very worst way. And then having them ripped from him. Just when he thought they might be with him forever.

He should know better.

He glanced up with tired, red rimmed eyes to meet his own face reflected in the shattered mirror. His helmet had been discarded long ago, responsible for cracking the wall-length window overlooking the tumultuous Kaminoan seas.

He didn't know what to do. For the first time in a long time, Jango felt himself breaking. Snapping like a twig. Every fiber of his heart being plucked apart one by one.

And it was all her fault.

"I hate you," he whispered hoarsely to empty air. "How...how can you make me feel this way?"

Referencing her seemed to dredge up the madness once more because, suddenly, there she was. A shimmering mirage of his memory, taking place in his room. She stood behind him, he could see her purple reflection in the mirror, dressed in the simple longsleeved shirt she wore beneath her leather suit. Her hair was blonde, a mess, like she had just run across the rainy expanse of a Kaminoan landing pad.

She was laughing. Smiling. Grinning and twirling happily like when she played with Boba.

"How could you do this to me?" Jango stared at the shattered mirror, at Zam's flickering memory dancing behind him. "When you knew how I felt about you, how much I…"

The image clad in purple stopped dancing, slowly pirouetting to still spin. Her arms fell and her laughing face grew sorrowful. She seemed to know what he was trying to say.

Of course she did. She wasn't real. She was a figment of his imagination. His own mind. She knew everything he would say.

He was too old to be daydreaming like this. Zam was gone, dead. He had watched it happen. He had killed her himself. This silly grasp at a fantasy was childish, unprofessional, and unnecessary.

But he didn't want to stop. He couldn't stop.

Jango watched, spellbound, as the mirage silently approached, smiling a small, reassuring smile and laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. The phantom warmth of her hand played tricks with his mind.

_It's okay, _she murmured wordlessly. _I don't blame you. _

She didn't have to.

He almost turned, almost reached up and placed his glove on top of hers. But he didn't. Some part of him knew that this was an illusion, and any movement would cause it to fade. He was motionless. Even if it wasn't real, he would drink it in, every moment, every last bit of these imaginary moments he should have spent with her. He could see her eyes again. See her smile. See her nose. See the soft blonde hair and the gentle curve of her face.

"I'll miss you," he confessed hoarsely and helplessly to the memory. There was nothing else he could say. He couldn't even apologize. How could he apologize for what he had done?

Zam's lips stretched wide into that beautiful, perfect angel smile, and her green eyes sparkled like the stars.

"Gods, how I'll miss you."

She beamed. _I know._ Slowly, she stooped behind his chair, never breaking eye contact for a moment, before she cupped the side of his face with one ghost hand and touched her lips to his cheek.

_I care for you, my brave Manda'lor warrior. Very much.  
_

The stinging behind his eyes grew intolerable.

_And no matter what happens, I hope to the gods that you always remember that. _

He whirled, hands outstretched, desperate. He needed to hold her. Just one more time. He had to try.

But she was gone.

She had never been there.

The flash of lightning illuminated the empty room, so cold and barren after her life had filled it, and the crack of thunder that followed only served to emphasize the fact.

She was gone.

Jango stumbled backwards into his chair again, heaving breaths that stabbed with every inhale. How was he going to live without her? He couldn't. He couldn't imagine his world without her in it.

He turned back to the mirror and gazed at the shattered reflection. Strangely fitting. The broken scraps of a man he didn't recognize stared back.

_The man who killed her. _

He couldn't face himself. Trembling, shaking, and drowning, Jango lowered his head and gave in to the pain.

Something wet suddenly trailed from his eye. He knew what it was, but he didn't want to admit it. It couldn't be what he thought it was. But another soon joined it. And another. And another.

It hurt to breath.

He felt his heartbeat shaking his chest with every thump, and his shoulders trembled.

He was crying.

Go figure. He was human after all.

* * *

_A/N: Excuse any unsatisfactory prose in this, I wrote some of it at 2 am. XP Well, there's chapter two! No worries though, Zam's adventures will be along soon. Well, before Jango shows back up, anyway. ;)  
_


	3. The Changeling Lives

_A/N: Hello from college, everybody! I'm hoping this chapter isn't too long (boring) for you, I just have to set everything up. Anyway, enjoy! _

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the following characters (except for Grunt and Skims, and maybe even the store). I have borrowed them for my amusement.

* * *

"Ava, I need somebody up front!"

Eight days, fourteen hours, twenty-two minutes, and four seconds.

"Ava, did you hear me?"

That's how long she had been living her new life.

"Ava We!"

Her new life free of bounty hunting, free of danger. Free of Jango.

"Ava, where the Hoth are you?"

Not that she'd been counting or anything.

"AVA!"

Zam was jerked out of her stupor by the harsh, growled shout. With a surprised gasp, she tumbled from the stool to the dirty tile, taking with her several of the hyperdrives she'd been absently tinkering with.

"Ouch! Great. What is it, Grunt?"

An ugly, green Trandoshan stomped to the doorway of the parts room, filling the entire space like a hulking refrigerator. His orange lizard eyes glowered down at the blue Twi'lek sprawled on the floor. "What are you doing, We?"

"I fell, sir."

"Well, get your skinny blue butt up off the floor! You'll get the tile all greasy!"

Growling insults under her breath, Zam raised herself gingerly to her feet and brushed the red dust off her oil-stained overalls. "Something you wanted, boss?"

"Darned right, there's something I want!" Grunt's sharp teeth gnashed fiercely, flecking Zam's face with spittle. "I want you to start doing your job, that's what I want!"

"These used hyperdrive parts needed some work, sir, I was just—"

"DON'T YOU BACKTALK ME, GIRL!" Zam could practically see the steam shooting from Grunt's pointy head. His eyes flamed with anger in the dim light, and his clawed fists clenched into small boulders. "WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR, JUST TO SIT AROUND AND MOON ALL DAY?"

Resisting the urge to spit some rather vicious insults back into her boss's face, Zam turned away, rolled her eyes, and began to collect the scattered hyperdrive parts. "No, sir."

"DARNED RIGHT!" Grunt's barrel chest still heaved with anger, but with her apparent compliance, the Trandoshan began to calm down. "I probably said about twenty times that I needed somebody at the front desk. Or maybe you didn't hear me, Miss We, hmm?"

For a split second, Zam almost turned around and corrected him: _the name's Wesell, not We._ She only barely managed to stop herself.

Upon her arrival to Geonosis, the pair of scruffy Ithorians with whom she'd hitched a ride had demonstrated their compassion and kindness in helping her find work at _Grunt's Ship and Supply Depot, _a small, dirty and rundown shack that served as a pathetic excuse for a machine shop. Still, the place seemed like it was doing pretty well, and she guessed that was because most of the inhabitants of Geonosis were droids: they had to find spare parts some place or another, and _Grunt's _looked like it was the best around.

Maintaining the Twi'lek form she had swiped from the escort back on Coruscant, Zam applied for a job.

"_Name?" the gruff Trandoshan had demanded. _

_Automatically, she began, "Z—"_

_She quickly froze. What was she thinking, giving out her original name? Yeah, make it hard to find yourself by using your own name, that's intelligent, Wesell._

_At her hesitation, Grunt had looked up from the application with an irritated snort. "You do have a name, don't ya, princess?"_

"_Yes, yes, I have a name, of course, I have a name!" Zam gave a tremulous smile and stammered out, "My name…my name is…uh…"_

_A real, simple, unnoticeable name. _

"_Ava. Ava We."_

_And finish it up by using the last name of a female Kaminoan. Well, I guess it'll do. Has a nice ring to it._

"_Ava We," Grunt had repeated, scratching the name down on the datapad. "Alright, Ava, you're hired. Congratulations. You be glad there's a war on. I wouldn't usually take a stupid Twi'lek like you, but I need the help. So, guess what? For your first job, that refresher over there needs attending to. And wear some gloves. The guy you're replacing only scrubbed the mirror, and he died from some type of fever. You've had your shots, right?"_

And so Zam's new life had begun, no longer as Zam Wesell the Clawdite bounty hunter, but as Ava We, the Twi'lek mechanic. She was just glad that she knew a thing or two about ships, or she was sure she'd still be scrubbing that gods-awful refresher.

A pretty face helped too. She got more male clients than she knew what do to with, and even though most of them were bug-eyed Geonosians, Grunt seemed to notice she was good for business, and thus she rose in the ranks rather quickly.

He still hated her guts, though.

The feeling was pretty much mutual.

Zam set the hyperdrive parts on the small, dirty bench where she had been working, and fixed Grunt with a questioning eye. "I thought Yitz had the front desk today."

"Yitz quit this morning," Grunt snarled, turning back to the doorway and stomping down the narrow hall. "I guess he thought he wasn't being paid enough. Stupid Corellian. Guess he thought he could do better."

"Probably 'cause he could, Grunt," Zam remarked, following the Trandoshan down the hallway and wiping her oily blue palms on a spare rag from her back pocket. "You had the guy working ten hours a day for minimum wage for five years. Anybody'd quit."

Either Grunt didn't hear her, or he chose to ignore her. "Work the front, We. That's the last time I'm telling ya."

"And what's with the Corellian comment? Still hate their guts?" Zam was vaguely aware that she was pushing her boss's patience, but she could tell he was in a good mood this afternoon—_Grunt's_ had gotten a large order for spare droid parts that morning, and the Separatists could be called anything but skimpy when it came to payment. She could have sworn she had even seen Grunt smile once after the call had been put through.

Hence she could afford to pick on her boss's infamous phobia every now and then.

Zam threw her dirty rag under the counter as she took her place at the cash register, shaking her blue lekku and sparing the Trandoshan a wry smirk. "How, out of every place in the universe, a xenophobic alien like you could stand living here is beyond me, Grunt."

"It's a living, We," Grunt snarled, bending his bulk over the edge of the counter to lay his clawed hands on a bucket of assorted screws. "And besides, when my slavers dumped me off here, I took what I could get. You can't be picky in a place like this."

Even though she had heard this story once before, Zam's face fell. She didn't like slavers. Aliens who took advantage of younglings had a special place in Hell reserved just for them. "How old were you, Grunt?"

"I was eight." The Trandoshan pawed through the screws, organizing them into the shelves lining the back wall of the store. "Thank the gods. There were some kids younger than me dropped off on worse places. Felt sorry for the critters. There's no chance in hell many of 'em made it."

Zam frowned down at the credit chip she had clutched in her blue hand as she reorganized the cash register. Years of persecution under those blasted Zolans had made her tough, hard, and strong, but no matter how much she had gone through, there was still a soft spot in her heart for children. Any children. They didn't deserve what they got in life. They couldn't help where they were born, who their parents were, what they had to do to survive.

She grasped the credit chip in her hand with such force the edges began to bend. So many children suffering all for money, power, greed, war…

She wondered vaguely if Boba had suffered when he had learned of her 'death.'

Just as quickly as the thought had come, she banished it from her mind. _It's trouble to be thinking of those kinds of things, Zam. It's all in the past, and besides, don't be silly. He probably doesn't care. Fett Sr. sure as heck didn't. Heck, for all you know, Jango might not have said a thing about it to him._

Something wet rolled down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away on her shoulder as she stuffed the chip back into the register. Tears were a weakness. Besides, she had nothing to cry over. Absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, Grunt noticed the clean streak on the Twi'lek's otherwise grungy face, and he growled. "You cryin', princess? What the heck are you cryin' for? Me?"

"I'm not crying, Grunt," Zam was quick to correct him with a forced smile. "But if I was, it would certainly not be for you."

"Great, that makes me get to feelin' all warm n' fuzzy inside. Now enough chit chat, We. Get your tiny blue butt in gear and start sortin' these screws. What the heck am I payin' ya for, to stand there and look pretty? Gods…"

Muttering swears under his breath, Grunt moved back into the storage rooms, undoubtedly to begin laying stuff out for the droid part shipment. Zam couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as she watched his stained white jumpsuit disappear into the dark recesses of the store. _That should keep him busy for a few hours. _

"Hey, Ava, you alright?"

A voice to her left brought her attention back to the front of the store. A short, crimson-skinned Zeltron with kind eyes and a pixie haircut grinned at her brightly with reassurance.

Zam smiled back. "Thanks, Skims, I'm fine. Grunt's sure in a better mood today than he usually is. I didn't get shouted at near as much as I would have usually."

Skims, who had leaned against the counter casually, glanced up with a confused look. "Who? Oh, Ava, I'm not talking about Ol' Lizard Brain back there. I'm talkin' bout you. That was an honest to goodness tear in your eye just a few seconds ago. Everything okay?"

As though to make thoroughly sure any trace of her lapse in emotional control had been erased, Zam brought both hands to her tired eyes and rubbed them harshly. "Yeah, yeah, Skims, I'm fine."

"You sure?" The Zeltron cast a sympathetic glance as she fixed her greasy tank top on her skinny frame. "Ava, I don't know where you come from, or what happened to you, but when those two Ithorians brought you in here for a job, they said you spent most of the trip sitting in the back of their ship either crying or sleeping. Ava…"

Skims gave a sigh, and said quietly, "I know you've only known me for a week or something, and that's barely enough time for anybody to get to know somebody else, but I like to think of you as, well…as my friend, Aves, and…"

Skims trailed off, awkwardly fiddling with a wayward nut that had remained unnoticed on the checkout counter. Zam smiled gratefully at the young Zeltron across from her. Skims had to be about her age, maybe even a little bit younger, with skinny arms, a skinny torso, and skinny legs that looked even thinner when she wore her enormous work boots and baggy cargo jeans.

From what she knew of Zeltrons, Zam recalled that the crimson-skinned aliens had a particularly great capacity to love, and love unconditionally. But when such an outlet was absent, that love often was twisted into hatred that found an outlet in violence. Fortunately, Skims was of a personality of the formerly stated type, probably due to the extensive menagerie of animals she had collected in her small apartment down the street. She perpetually smelled of pet food.

She had also been Zam's first friend of sorts upon her arrival to_ Grunt's_. While not a particularly gifted mechanic, Skims's pixie face and her bubbly personality made her a surprisingly good saleswoman. In fact, Zam had a sneaking suspicion the Zeltron was behind the enormous droid parts order _Grunt's _had received this morning.

"Well, I dunno," Skims finished lamely, clearing her throat and glancing back up with her black eyes. "Just…if you ever need someone to talk to, Ava, you can talk to me."

Zam smiled. "Thanks, Skims." She wouldn't be taking her up on that offer any time soon, but it felt good to know that it was there. She liked Skims, and didn't plan on telling her anything about her former life, if only to spare her the gory details and perhaps potential trouble should any of her former…clients come looking for her.

"Yeah, yeah," Skims muttered to the cash register as Zam pulled out a relatively cleaner cloth and began to busy herself polishing the checkout. "You say that, but you don't really mean it."

"Of course I mean it, Skims. Thank you for the offer. I'd also thank you to get back to work before Grunt comes back out here and strips both our hides for chatting on the job."

"You kidding me, right Ava?" Skims shot her a deadpan glance before she gestured to the practically empty store. "There's nobody here."

Today, the store was rather peculiarly quiet. Something about a Jedi execution. She had heard about that in the daily holonews this morning, and while she agreed that every dead Jedi was a good Jedi in the world, she wasn't particularly keen on the spectacle that was a public execution. Death was not something to be glorified. Death was necessary for life, like eating, sleeping and drinking, nothing more.

Apparently, however, her views weren't shared by the majority of the population of Geonosis, most of which had obviously begun the celebration early by either sleeping in or preparing themselves for the execution that was to be held later that evening. Skims had a point. The store was practically lifeless.

Except for them, Grunt, and a scruffy looking Dug examining gyroscopes in the corner, the store was empty.

Zam shrugged her blue shoulders. "I'll have to hand that to you."

"Of course you will. Because it's true. Grunt can't get mad at us for not doing our job if there's no job to do."

"You could try resorting the hyperdrive packages?"

"If you mention work one more time, Aves, I swear, I'm gonna punch you in the face." Skims's mischievous smirk suddenly fell from her lips as she leaned forward over the counter to get a closer look at Zam's face. "Gosh, sweetie, you look tired. Are you sure you're okay? Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"Of course I have been." That was a lie. Zam hadn't slept a wink since she had been on this gods-forsaken planet. And the only time she _had_ stolen a quick nap, her mind had been plagued with images of blue and silver Mandalorian armor, and she found that she would almost rather die of exhaustion than have Jango Fett haunt her dreams. "I'm perfectly alright, Skims. Geez, you sound like my mother."

"You work too much, then. I know you're Grunt's best mechanic and all, and he works you like a slave, but you need to stand up to him, girl! Let him have it. He can't keep running you like this."

"Skims, I don't work too much!" Zam batted away the girl's crimson hands like annoying flies. Sometimes, she wondered whether Skims didn't see everybody as one of her pets. "I'm just…a little tired, that's all."

"Then this calls for a girl's night out," she declared, a sudden light brightening her black eyes like two stars in the dim store. "Tonight. You and me, we're hitting Club Dune like crazy girls."

"Skims, I…I don't think that's a good idea." Zam had just been killed eight days ago by who she had considered her best friend, and she still had yet to depart from the resulting emotional roller coaster ride. The last thing she wanted to do was party at a Geonosian bar.

"Why not? That is totally just the thing you need, Aves! A long weekend. And…" Skims's eyes sparkled mischievously. "A man to spend it with."

Zam almost choked on her own spit. "No. Absolutely not."

"Why? That'd be the perfect fix for your depression, Ava! It always works for me!"

"Skims, just…no! I can't! And I wouldn't, even if I could!"

"Why?"

"Just because!" Zam's blue cheeks flushed indignantly, and she busied herself with scrubbing the life out of a rather sticky spot of oil on the counter. _Just because the only man I'd ever let myself fall in love with killed me a week ago. It's a little too soon to be moving on. _The thought sent a painful wave through the changeling's chest, but Zam quickly brushed it off and stored it in a dark corner of her mind to deal with later. She had learned to do that over the past week. "My previous life, before this one, I'd…I'd never had much luck in the…man department."

_Well, that's the understatement of the millennia. _

Skims's thin lips pursed in understanding, and she gave a slow nod. "I see, I see. But," she perked up with a mood swing that would have made anyone's head spin, "you'll change your mind tonight!"

Zam just smirked and rolled her eyes, focusing all of her attention on cleaning the wood. This conversation was just becoming downright ridiculous. Zam was fairly certain that she wouldn't heal completely from Jango's betrayal for several years, let alone one week. True, the time to move on would come, and probably come soon, but for the moment, it was still a little too soon.

The wound was still a little too raw for her to just slap a bandage over it and wish the pain away.

The small bell at the front of the store announced the arrival of a customer, and inwardly, Zam breathed a sigh of relief. Wonderful. Now, Skims would go and work her magic on the poor unsuspecting victim, somehow convince him to buy the entire store, and in the meantime, spare her from having to delve any more in this rather testy subject of conversation.

This, however, was not exactly what happened.

"Oh, my gods…" Zam heard Skims gasp in a breathless voice. "Ava, I think you might even get your chance at your man right now."

"Is that so?" Zam, who had ducked behind the counter to wipe clean the lower shelves, smirked into the dark. "Is he tall, dark, and handsome?"

"You can't tell, he's wearing a helmet," Skims whispered in answer. "And armor. Silver armor. Like a warrior."

Zam rolled her eyes as Skims giggled like a schoolgirl, continuing, "I wonder where that armor's from…not Coruscant, not Rattatak, not Kalee…starts with an 'm'…gosh, what is it, what is it…?"

Beneath the counter, Zam had frozen. Everything had stopped stone dead. Not even her heart was beating, the muscle was just a deadweight against her sternum.

She whispered her next word, praying with every fiber of her being that Skims would answer with 'no.'

"Mandalorian?"

Above, Skims snapped her vermillion fingers. "That's it! Mandalorian. Good job, Ava, how'd you guess?"

Ignoring her friend, Zam shot straight up from her crouched position behind the barricade checkout counter. Like an idiot, she shot straight up, baring her head, her eyes, her entire torso to the outside world. If he'd been holding a blaster, he could have shot her fifteen times before she hit the floor.

She looked at him, and he looked at her, and every part of their bodies stilled.

Even without seeing his face, she could tell he was looking her over. She had worked with him long enough that she recognized the minute gestures, the tiny movements that no other being could possibly see, that meant he was looking at her and thinking. She stared at him for a moment, just briefly, but it was enough to tell her that some part of his mind recognized her eyes, the only part of her body she wasn't able to shift. Some part of him knew who she was, even if the rest of him didn't.

Before she could do any more damage, Zam ducked back behind the counter, feeling her heart very much alive again performing a one-girl percussion show inside her ribs with her brain sitting front row.

With his son by his side, standing framed and powerful in the doorway of _Grunt's Ship and Supply Depot_, was Jango Fett.

* * *

_A/N: Ackpth! The infamous Jango Fett has made his appearance! So, what'd ya think? Too long? Boring? Drawn out? Click the little button below and tell me! _


End file.
